Arequipa Arequipa!

It is now summer time and there is finally sun in Lima!! To celebrate the end of classes Elly and I took a 10 day trip to Arequipa, Puno, Lake Titicaca and La Paz, Bolivia. What a crazy and unforgettable south american adventure! We left from Lima at 8:30 at night taking a taxi to the bus station where we found out that we were being upgraded to the "Exclusivo" bus, meaning that instead of having a seat that reclines only 160 degrees, we would be enjoying a 180 degree reclining "semi bed." Needless to say we did not put up too much of a fuss about having to wait an extra 45 minutes to board our bus to Arequipa... we decided we were ok with it.

After the 15 hour bus ride, for most of which we were sound asleep in our ehem.. beds.. we arrived in la ciudad blanca: the white city of Arequipa. We spent a couple of days walking around the beautiful city enjoying it's famous queso helado (iced cheese), alfajores - cookies filled with manjar blanco - a kind of caramel like goo, and alpaca textiles galore.

Next stop was Puno, not the most beautiful city in Peru but home to the breathtaking Lake Titicaca at 3,812 meters (12,500 feet) above sea level - the highest navigable lake in the world.

On the lake are the floating islands made from reeds where we made a pit stop and met the president of the island and got to ride in their "Mercedes Benz" reed boat.

I decided to have a go at rowing the boat and found it more difficult than I had anticipated. I guess that is to be expected when the experienced driver decides to take a nap on the job. He was making me do all the work!

Here is a cute little girl - probably 7 or so, rowing her boat to school.

On our way to the island of Taquile soaking up the sun on the top of the boat.

The island of Taquile is the biggest island in the lake. The sights were incredible but the island has become completely over taken by tourists. Every local person that we saw had in their hands a spindle and thread making all kinds of tourist merchandise from hats, gloves and ski headbands to bags and belts. I had read about the tourism industry on this same island in one of my classes this semester which made the experience all the more interesting yet at the same time all the more uncomfortable. When tourists first started coming to the island the only way to access it was on the boats of the islanders themselves. Since the boats were so slow and not especially comfortable it was necessary for the tourists to spend the night in the homes of the locals which offered a substantial profit to those who opened their homes to foreigners. Now the people of Puno have opened up their own small businesses for tourists, offering trips in quick speed boats which allow tourists to visit the island for a few hours and return to Puno in the same day. Although this is much more convenient for the tourists who have set aside only a day or so in Puno (like us), this has really impacted the lives of the people who live on the island.

Crossing into Bolivia was a whole new adventure. Leaving Puno we hopped on a mini bus which would take us to the border. Nearly all of the people on the bus were dressed in traditional clothing and inspected us - two giggly gringas - as we marched to the back of the bus with our backpacks and tomato and avocado sandwiches, excited to get another stamp in our passports. When we reached the end of Peru, we hopped out of the bus and walked across the border to Bolivia... just far enough in to enter the customs office.

Now, Elly, being a citizen of Switzerland, only gets to talk to one person at the border of Peru and Bolivia. In contrast, I, as a north American, get to talk with several. It turns out that relations between United States of America and Bolivia are a bit shakey and as a result, Bolivia requires North Americans to jump through lots of hoops in order to enter their country... as well as pay a fine of 135 dollars. So instead of getting only one new stamp on my passport, I now have a full page of stickers, stamps and signatures... courtesy of the 4 Bolivians who assisted me in crossing into their country.

All of this craziness was well worth the time spent at the border as Bolivia I think is one of themost beautiful and exciting countries I have visited. It is located in a canyon which is surrounded by snow-capped mountains and giant red rocks used to construct brick buildings

THIS would be illegal in the U.S.... I think.

The beautiful plaza near our hostal where Elly and I spent the sunset watching the kids play chase with the pigeons.

Here is me. Again at the border of Peru and Bolivia. Not happy to be leaving the best trip thus far but ready to put on a clean change of clothes.

San Pedro de Casta

For a final project for my class called Etnografia Andina (Andean Ethnography) I have travelled twice to a small town in the Andes called San Pedro de Casta. The town was formed during the Toledo Reforms in the 1500's during which indigenous peoples were organized into large pueblos called reducciones. Now they are a small farming comunity that has become somewhat of a turist destination due to the discovery of Marcahuasi, the great rock formations about 3,000 feet above the town which has come to be considered one of the 7 wonders of Peru... right up there with Machu Picchu!

For the project, my group members and I have chosen to study the non-cristian beliefs still in existence in the community. It was really interesting to talk to the people and to hear some of their stories.

I met some pretty interesting people in San Pedro de Casta. This man's name is Manuel Olivares and can be considered a sort of "man of the mountain." He spent a lot of time with the Swiss manwho discovered Marcahuasi less than a decade ago. In his younger years Marcahuasi was his paradise and he dared the 2 hour climb over a hundred times. Now he is nearly blind and deaf but still loves to talk about his adventures in Marcahuasi and it seems that he cherrishes it as his contribution to his pueblo.

Here is the sweet little lady who told us all about her experience with Soqta Kuri, the man considered to have rid San Pedro de Casta of the seven headed serpent who used to do harm to the people. Everyone knows Soqta Kuri and fears his awful storms. Fortunately he now lives in Bolivia and only returns every 3 or 5 years.

4,200 meters (12,600 feet) above sea level and litterally at the top of a mountain in the Andes are the ancient rock formations of Marcahuasi. During my second visit to San Pedro de Casta I did the climb. It was the hardest climb I think I have ever done but it was well worth it once I reached the top. The humanity rock has 7 faces in total.. this one is the most famous.

I sat by this lake for a while in silence. There was not a sound and the water was perfectly still. Living in Lima I have not experienced real silence in 3 and a half months.. literally. The only company were a couple of donkies roaming around. It was pretty unbelievable to be on the top of a mountain where I was at eye level with all of the clouds and mountain tops.

These would be the "mummies" that were found in Marcahuasi. Really they are just very frightning skeletons in glass cases that are open on the top. The interesting part is that for my study I learned about the belief in the "gentiles" who are thought to have been the ancient ancestors. The skeletons have been incorporated into this belief in San Pedro de Casta and it is thought that the skeletons found in Marcahuasi were the gentiles (their ancestors) and that they had fled to the top of the mountain from the spanish conquistadors because they did not want to be christian. The leaves in the bottom of the case and on the table are coca leaves. I asked the lady who ran the "museum" why there were coca leaves in the cases and she said they were offerings to the gentiles. I then asked her why they needed to make offerings and she said that when people take pictures you must give them offerings of coca leaves and that if you don't they won't let you sleep at night. When we asked other people about the gentiles they also refered to the mummies and gave us similar information about the offering of coca leaves and about what might happen should they not recieve these offerings.

A completely different experience from any of the others and one that I will certainly always remember.

Selvamonos!!

We have decided that the best way to travel is with spontaneity. Planned trips never seem to go as well. Last weekend we went to La Merced and Oxapampa (the high jungle) on a whim after hearing about a big music/art festival there called Selvamonos! (from the word "selva" meaning "jungle" - literally translated: lets jungle ourselves!). Great decision. Everything fell into place. We took a night bus from Lima on Friday night and arrived in La Merced in the morning. We checked out the town and after a couple of hours took a bumpy yet beautiful ride up to Oxapampa. Everything was lush and green and the path was lined with banana trees and coffee plants. We got to our "hospedaje" and took a quick nap before heading to the festival. At the festival there were 2 stages where different bands played throughout the day and night. We met some really cool girls from columbia and ended up hanging out with them all day. The festival was great with lots of dancing and enjoying the pitch black, starry sky that we never get to see in Lima.

The next day we had about 8 hours to kill before we had to take our night bus back to Lima. What to do with our time? Maybe a nice jaunt through the jungle? Not a bad idea! At breakfast the perfect opportunity was served to us on a silver platter along with our eggs and pineapple juice. A man who owns a tour company in La Merced (one of the best in my opinion) was at the same restaurant and, although it was a Sunday, set us up with a tour in the rainforest. The tour included a "new sport" called canyoning which consists of ascending 7 waterfalls of a river that runs through a valley in the mountains. Increible! Our tour guide, Robert (pronounded rubber) enjoyed the hike as much if not more than we did. At times we would be anxious to continue on while we waited for him to finish playing in the waterfalls. It was great to have a guide who loved his playground of a forest so much! We also met up with his brother, Anthony :), who happened to be wandering around the jungle at the same time. Robert whistled a few times and out came Anthony who finished the trip with us in his flip flops and documented our trip with our cameras, which I think he enjoyed thouroughly.

On the way to La Merced Elly and I were upgraded to first class. When we saw our seats which were leather and reclined all the way back almost into beds we could not contain our laughter at how ridiculous our luck was. I think we got a lot of annoyed looks from the passengers around us.

Interesting construction technique in La Merced.

Oxapampa. the beginning of the festival.

Yes. There was rodeo. This is about all I saw I could not watch too long.

Dalila, one of the Columbian chicas we met.

Some great pictures of our jungle hike. We were soaking wet the whole time and had not been properly informed that we were to scale 7 waterfalls! But we had an amazing time and would not have changed a thing.

MACHU PICCHU!

Wow what a crazy week! Parciales week (midterms) is coming to an end and I am finally getting to post some pictures of our Cuzco trip from 2 weekends ago. Here's the sad news.. my camera died the day that we arove in Cuzco and of course i did not bring my charger with me. Definately an Amanda move but what are you going to do? Fortunately we are in the age of facebook where you can access all of your friends' photos and steal them by saving them on your own computer :). I found this to be almost even better than taking my own pictures because, while everyone was living through the lense, I was camera free and taking in the sights like a dry sponge.

Cuzco is an absolutely gorgeous city... much more so than Lima in my personal opinion (and almost anyone you will talk to will agree). It is "touristy" but this makes for a really great place to meet people from all over the world!

For some reason I am not able to put captions with pictures on this blog.. first I have included a couple of pictures of the city itself. It has a very colonial feel.

On our first day in Cuzco we visited an alpaca/llama farm/petting zoo. Here we got to feed the animals and then see how they make the wool, clothing, and other soft things. On this farm they use all natural ingredients to dye the wool. Here is a dirty little secret: to make the yellow wool human urine is the dye.

On the day that we visited Machu Picchu we woke up at 4:00a.m. to climb the mountain instead of the more conventional bus ride. This consists of walking up a staircase of very large rocks for about an hour. When we began our walk it was pitch dark and all we could see was a faint outline of the mountains and a heavy mist all around us. It was an eerie yet magical feeling. I have included a couple of pictures of the hike up in the morning as well as some pictures of Machu Picchu.

Later we climbed to the top of Huayna Picchu (the mountain in the middle of all of the postcard pictures of Machu Picchu). We opted to climb up a little later since we were so exhausted from the morning hike. This was an excellent decision as we got to enjoy the ruins free of massive groups of tourists as well as watch the sunrise. Huayna Picchu is quite the hike but after our Machu Picchu hike it seemed like nothing. There was a dog that followed us all the way up Huayna who we affectionately named Buster (pronounced Booster). He would run up a few steps, lay down to rest while we caught up and then continue on his way.


Overall, best trip thus far. Pictures do not do justice. You will have to come visit me :)